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The AIG membership year for 2015/16 began on July 1st.

If you are certified by the Association as a “CIG”, “CIGA” or “CIGI”, you must maintain membership as part of the requirements of keeping your certification in “active status”.

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Dear Association Members and Friends,

“A lie can travel halfway around the world while the truth is putting on its shoes.” (Mark Twain)

Anyone who has spent any time in the Inspector General business knows what it is like to see a false narrative catch fire and spread, like a match to dry leaves. Many times this will occur before we have had a chance to gather any facts. Sometimes it will happen when we are not in a position to correct the record because an investigation is still ongoing. Over the years, I have learned through personal experience and observing the world around me that the truth has become an increasingly rare commodity. In 1996, Richard Jewell was falsely accused of the Atlanta Olympic Park bombing. We all remember the Duke Lacrosse case in 2006. More recently, most of you know about the article published in Rolling Stone last November alleging that a gang rape occurred at a University of Virginia fraternity house. Rolling Stone retracted that story after numerous media outlets and an independent review by the Columbia School of Journalism demonstrated it to be unreliable. One person who was interviewed about the story said the following:

“The thing is, it doesn’t matter,” he said. “It doesn’t matter if it’s true or not, because whether this one incident is true, there’s still a huge problem with sexual assault in the United States.”

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We are glad to announce that Association of Inspectors General’s 2015 Annual Conference will be held in Detroit from October 21st – 23rd, 2015. The Conference will be hosted by Detroit’s Office Of Inspectors General at the Marriott Detroit Renaissance Center. The registration for the conference is now open and we are also accepting exhibitors. For more information regarding the conference and how to register, please visit: http://inspectorsgeneral.org/conferences/

Dear Association Members and Friends,

“You have enemies? Good. That means that you stood up for something, sometime in your life.”
(Winston Churchill)

A few years ago, I taught a class for some John Jay College students who all had designs on one day becoming an Inspector General. I asked them if they truly understood what they were signing up for. Were they willing to stand up for what was right, alone if necessary? Even if it meant making enemies? My advice to them was that if their answer to any of those questions was “no”, then they needed to pick another career. Shortly after I was appointed as Louisiana State Inspector General back in 2008, former Massachusetts and New Orleans IG Robert Cerasoli told me: “Stephen, if you do this job right, they will eventually try to shut you down.” Sure enough, in 2012 it happened, and there was a high-profile fight for the survival of the Louisiana IG. We won that fight with the help of ordinary citizens, good government groups, and a lot of media coverage. I am still here, still vigilant, and still doing my best to “do the job right” one day at a time.

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Dear Association Members and Friends,

“Things are not always what they seem.”
 (Phaedrus, Roman Fable Writer, 50 AD)

Many times over the course of my career trying criminal cases, I quoted these words to criminal juries as a means of getting them to carefully examine and test evidence, rather than accepting things at face value.  Today, in January of 2015, they take on new and special relevance for me as the Inspector General from the State of Louisiana, and now, the newly elected President of the Association of Inspectors General.

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Virginia Beach Inspector General Institute^® – February 23 – 27, 2015

We are still accepting applications for our upcoming Certified Inspector General Institute^® scheduled to be held at Virginia Beach from February 23^rd till 27^th, 2015. We anticipate closing the application period before the end of January. For more information visit: http://inspectorsgeneral.org/institutes/

2015 National Training Conference to be Held in Detroit, MI

Our next AIG national training conference is planned for Detroit, MI in the fall of 2015. Our local host is the Detroit Office of Inspector General.  The dates and locale info are coming soon.